How TrustLayer Is Modernizing The Insurance Industry

The way insurance verification works today is terrible. Full stop. And I know, almost nothing will make people’s eyes glaze over faster than a term like “insurance verification.” So right off the bat, thank you for not glazing over, because this is important. The reality is that our entire economy would grind to a halt without the successful transfer of insurance credentials between businesses. It’s true.?

Any time two companies transact -- whether that’s a development company renting equipment, a stadium partnering with a security vendor, or when your local gym hires a cleaning service -- they need to verify each other’s insurance coverage to begin working together. We all know the phrase “accidents happen.” They do, yes, and with them come costs, headaches and inevitably insurance claims. Who’s on the hook for these claims is where it gets complicated. If you’re a business owner, you really want to make sure it’s not you. And so does your insurance carrier.?

There’s no reason in 2021 that the entire insurance industry should be relying on this dated and inefficient process.

This concept is called third-party-risk-transfer (a mouthful, I know). It’s important to grasp because it impacts your risk profile, your insurability and your premiums. If I lost you at “risk,” trigger warning, I’m going to say “compliance” in just a bit. There’s an entire industry built around proof of insurance. As a business, you need to manage tracking and compliance for these documents. If managed improperly or not at all, your premiums could go up, you could find yourself dealing with a non renewal, or worse a major lawsuit.

Insurance verification documents change hands 200,000 times daily in the U.S. alone, and are done almost exclusively via paper, fax, or PDF. That’s a lot of hours spent manually exchanging, reviewing, and verifying forms, and a huge cost to businesses, both operationally and from delays in payments or start dates for vendors. Handling this verification manually also increases the likelihood for error and leaves businesses open to additional risk.?

There’s no reason in 2021 that the entire insurance industry should be relying on this dated and inefficient process. That’s why I co-founded TrustLayer with our amazing Chief Technology Officer, Vincenzo Acinapura: to create a better way forward with the industry and to pave the way for a more secure, frictionless economy.?

Today, that looks like using artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) technology to completely automate the entire insurance verification workflow. Our platform ingests and processes certificates of insurance and gives our customers an easy-to-use dashboard where they can clearly see the current state of their coverage, and assess any vulnerabilities. That automation alone will transform the multi-billion dollar insurance industry, and the industry veterans are taking note.

What was especially validating as we began this journey was the incredible support and mentorship we received from the brokerage community.

There was clear demand for our automation product from corporate sectors that manage large amounts of risk, including construction, major sports leagues, franchising, equipment leasing, automotive financing, and mortgages (just to name a few).? What was especially validating as we began this journey was the incredible support and mentorship we received from the brokerage community (thank you BrokerTech Ventures). The value for brokers is twofold: they can either resell the product to their customers, which creates an additional revenue stream for them, or they can buy it outright from us and offer it as a sweetener. Today, dozens of the top 100 brokers have partnered with us commercially, and also chosen to invest in TrustLayer because of how much they believe in our solution. These include NFP, Graham Company, Holmes Murphy, Heffernan Insurance Brokers, M3, and BrokerTech Ventures.?

But TrustLayer isn’t stopping at workflow automation.?

What most excites me about our work is TrustLayer’s vision for the future of insurance, which our latest Series A funding will help us unlock as we grow. Automating the existing document-based workflow is just phase one—our ultimate goal is digitizing the entire insurance verification process end-to-end, which we can accelerate by integrating with carriers. This industry-wide verification solution will allow insureds to track their counterparties in real-time, while providing the industry with an unprecedented level of transparency and reliability.

Customers that use TrustLayer are also better risks and carriers recognize that. Already, we’ve signed commercial pilot agreements with Nationwide and LIberty Mutual. Just this month, one of our broker partners solicited quotes for a liability policy for one of their customers. A leading carrier responded, stipulating that they would only underwrite the policy if the customer agreed to use TrustLayer. We see potential for future partnerships with carriers to help them reduce risk and win business.?

Our Series A is an important milestone for TrustLayer, but we have only scratched the surface of what’s possible for the future of insurance. Immediately, our focus is adding talented, passionate members to our team as we grow on pace with demand. In the next year, we anticipate accelerated adoption of our solution across industries such as construction, property management, sports and hospitality. And, we are continuing development of our fully digital proof of insurance product, which will improve all business interactions across all sectors of the economy. I’m proud of where we’ve come in such a short time, but I am confident that TrustLayer is poised to become the industry standard as brokers, carriers, and insured parties work together to modernize the way that we mitigate risk.?